Lightroom 3 freezing when using import

[Richard4911]

Whhen attempting to import images from an external USB hard drive Lightroom 3 freezes.

The import bar goes across and Lightroom import about 3 images before freezing.

If I close Lightroom and re-start the import it'll import a few more images and freeze again.

Any ideas?

[John Hollenberg]

Need more info. Computer and OS?  Is drive plugged into a USB hub, or directly into a USB port on the computer?  Can the files be copied from the external hard drive OK using the OS?

[Richard4911]

Computer... Dell Precision M6300 Laptop

OS... Windows 7 Ultimate

Drive plugged directly into laptop USB port.

Files can be copied perfectly .

The function of import from this same external hard drive worked perfectly well under Lightroom 2.7

[DavePinMinn]

I've got a note in here from a day or two ago with a very similar problem.  And I'm not lacking either computer OR O/S

Mine hit while importing as part of a synchronize, but there's some kind of import problem going on.

[MelissaJ.G.]

By "freeze" what do you mean specifically? How long did you wait? -melissa

[Richard4911]

I've waited up to 15 minutes with the import bar almost at the end of its travel and given up at that point.

It'll import maybe three images and that's as far as it get's.

I then have to re-start Lightroom and import a few more, re-start and a few more and so on.

[Guest]

Got the same problem on a fresh computer ( Win7, x64)

Trying to import my hole library (my main photo folder), only few folder and photography are imported then LR3

stuck.

If I try to import a single sub-folder, it appears in the list, but no photo are import.

I killed LR3, re-start then synchronize the sub-folder then finally photos appear....

I can't assume to do this for all my folder.... dam !

It should be one of the first thing the program should handle

[luebeck]

It seems there are enough people talking about the same problem. Perhaps I

am looking in the wrong place while I have not seen any suggestions, or

official acknowledge that the problem even exists. The problem is getting

serious and a work around solution with large amounts of files are not any

longer an option. I've tried so many different ways to get the files into

lightroom 3. Sometimes it works sometimes not. New sync of the folder does

not seem to work for me now. I choose to use LR as my working tool, its been

a great product, I'm sure the bug will get worked out. In the mean time, the

situation is putting considerable stress on my business and surely others.

Somehow, I feel left in the dark and am not sure what to do. What about an

official comment from Adobe, suggestion, something.

Not fun or funny, we need help.

Am 01/07/2010 03:46 schrieb "Freegab" unter <forums@adobe.com>:

Got the same problem on a fresh computer ( Win7, x64)

Trying to import my hole library (my main photo folder), only few folder and

photography are imported then LR3

stuck.

If I try to import a single sub-folder, it appears in the list, but no photo

are import.

I killed LR3, re-start then synchronize the sub-folder then finally photos

appear....

I can't assume to do this for all my folder.... dam !

It should be one of the first thing the program should handle

>

[Guest]

Just completed a bug report.

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

I encourage everyone to massively do the same.

[Guest]

Message #9 from an Adobe employee above states,

"Import changed in LR3 - I agree  its a bug, but its not a simple correlation

between 2 and 3.

-melissa"

Isn't that heartwarming....

[Guest]

Been working on 57 images - - trying to massage them into LR3.

After MANY import restarts, and watching card access lights and harddrive lights, I am pretty sure that the programs problem is in the rendering. It looks like it reads a while, perhaps fills some buffer, then gets loopy in the render process.

Please look there Adobe! We can't have this much longer.

[Guest]

Finally got them all imported. I noticed that on import, after about 5 images, things get wonky. These are NEF's, (Nikon RAW for you Canon folks) with file sizes about 12.2mb.

That's all for me today. Looking forward to a big ole patch!

[DavePinMinn]

In my case, which synchronizing a folder, LR tried to import several images that were already in the catalog.The progress bar went to the end, and LR hung there.  In one case I let it sit for more than 30 minutes (I was importing a total of 7 images), just to see if it'd wake up.  It never did.  There was very little if any cpu usage while in this condition, memory didn't appear to change, and there was no disk activity coming from LR.

[MelissaJ.G.]

On these photos that LR won't import, what kind of files are they? Do they

have XMP already attached?

-melissa

[Richard4911]

The images are .tiff and .nef images.

Whether or not the XMP (I can find no .xmp files) is there or not didn't affect the importing of images under Lightroom 2.7

[MelissaJ.G.]

Import changed in LR3 - I agree its a bug, but its not a simple correlation

between 2 and 3.

-melissa

[Michael_Tapes]

Hi Melissa,

Michael Tapes here. I was on the "inside group" during 1.0 development.

My Import issue is just as serious as discussed here by others but it manifests itself a little differently. As soon as I hit the Import button (or select from the menu or drag and drop some files), The import progress bar appears upper left, but none of the other Import window appears, and LR appears to be locked. Sometimes some of the Import Window is draw, but mostly none. I think part of LR thinks that it IS in Import "mode". because if I X out of LR, sometimes it will say, we will close the Import window and exit LR. This is on an i7Core processor and using XP-SP3. I have an associate who has this same problem on 3 of 4 machines with various OS. It seems that from a fresh boot LR import will work properly, but after running other programs in my day if I then come to LR, the Import will not work. All other functions of LR appear to be fine.

Let me know if I can help in any way to get this resolved. Basically I have to reboot each time I want to import files into LR.

Thanks...

Michael

[tigerhorn]

Michael, this is exactly the experience that I had with Lightroom 3 Import.  I renamed the preference file and restarted Lightroom.  This did not solve the problem so I deleted the new preference file and rename the old file back.  The next import I tried was from a CF card using the auto start feature in Windows 7 to import using Lightroom 3.  Everything worked just fine.  ???  Now I can import from any of my hard drives or removeable drives.  It is like Lightroom suddenly "remembered" how to import.  I don't know if renaming the preference file was the answer or not.  I still have a Lightroom 2 preference file in the same folder.  I am wondering if Lightroom 3 was somehow trying to use the Lightroom 2 preference file.

[Michael_Tapes]

@tigerhorn,

Thanks for relating your experience with the import freeze problem. I deleted the prefs file. LR built a new fresh one, and things seemed to be more stable, but after a while the same freeze on import came back. I exited PS CS5 and then import worked again, and then ran PS again, and import still worked. I cannot seem to isolate it to anything specific. Pretty erratic operation. The one constant is that it seems to work properly directly after a re-boot of the system, and for some time after that. What trigger it to stop working I do not know. I will post if I find some conclusion evidence. Thanks..

To repeat the symptom...

--Enable IMPORT function (by any means)

--progress bar in upper left of screen appears (no progress shown

--no other elements of the import screen are drawn

--"sometimes" some additional elements of the screen are drawn, or the source bar shows up but with no drives shown beneath it.

[Lee_Jay-ZyZk56]

Michael,

Do you have a security scanning program running?  If so, can you exclude the LR catalog folder and try again?

[Michael_Tapes]

@ Lee Jay,

Hi....

Tried your suggestion to no avail. From reading the posts some people get someways through the import process. In my situation, the problem is that the import "screen" is not drawn or not drawn completely, and I cannot proceed through the import process. If things are good (after a re-boot, for example) then the import screen draws properly and the import itself never fails.

This is quite a serious problem to say the least...and it appears to be reasonable wide spread. I wonder if Adobe can reproduce it?

Thanks to all for your suggestions.

Michael Tapes

[TheDigitalDog]

Michael Tapes wrote:

In my situation, the problem is that the import "screen" is not drawn or not drawn completely, and I cannot proceed through the import process.

Don’t know if this will help, but I had an identical issue during the beta process which eventually went away. But I also had a number of other issues that may have been a result of multiple upgrading of catalogs over the years with beta’s. Only when starting with a clean, virgin catalog and importing all the images from scratch did a number of these issues disappear. Not knowing how old your catalog is, how many upgrades its undergone, might be useful to test this theory with a clean 3.0 catalog. I now wonder, if like Mac OS, oddities that manifest over time need to be rectified by starting from a clean slate (I find that from time to time, an clean install of OS X can do wonders). I can’t tell you how much better LR 3 operates after this catalog enema <g>.

[Michael_Tapes]

Hi Andrew,

Only when starting with a clean, virgin catalog and importing all the images from scratch did a number of these issues disappear.

Good thought on the catalog enema. This catalog has been at least through 2.0 and all upgrades (no betas, though). But the problem is of course that if I import all the images from scratch, there go my adjustments and meta data. Even If I exported every image to XMP sidecar files, we all know that they do not carry all of the data that is in the catalog. Maybe I can try to open a new V3 catalog and import my existing catalog into it and see if that acts as a purge. What do you think?

Thanks. Hope all is well...

Michael

[Wimbolleke]

Lee Jay wrote:

Michael,

Do you have a security scanning program running?  If so, can you exclude the LR catalog folder and try again?

You could be hitting the nail there, Lee. LR3 took about half an hour to show the inventory of my memory card with 710 cr2 files (and only I was interested in the last 3...). While waiting, I read your reply and adjusted Comodo to exclude the LR process, the catalogues directory, and the cache directory. It seems to be more responsive now, by I need another memcard to test it.

Wim

[Wimbolleke]

Well. having tried a couple of days more now, I am done with LR3. Indeed fencing off Comodo did help, but not enough. I just reinstalled 2.5 and it's just amazing how fast the import's running. I estimate it's doing over 50 photos per second whereas LR3 doesn't manage one per second.

The sharpening/noise reduction was definitely better in LR3, but for the rest you may keep it. Regrettably the bloody update doesn't know how to downgrade the catalogues...